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.).This is a dense passage, but it is at least clear from it that Nietzsche envisagesa concept of the beautiful that arises from a mode of valuation that is, in thefirst instance, both self-regarding (like noble valuing) and negative (like slavevaluing).It begins by branding a No into the self it says to itself I amugly. And it is from this originary valuation that, by contrast, the secondary,positive term, the beautiful, is derived ( what would be beautiful if ugli-ness had not first said to itself: I amugly ? ) a term that is reserved for what isnot the self, and so is associated, precisely, with concepts such as self-denial. So we have here a mode of valuation that is rooted, as the second of thealternatives canvassed earlier had it, in a self-regarding No. It seems plausible to say that it is this route to the beautiful that mostclosely reflects the one that Nietzsche understands Kant and Schopenhauerto have taken: a route by which an other-regarding conception of beauty isarrived at only by way of a negative valuation of the self this lattervaluation, we may take it, being associated by Nietzsche with the forms of self-denial that Kant and Schopenhauer, in their different ways, expressthrough the ideal of disinterestedness. 18 And, if this is right, then it is falsethat Nietzsche s real objection to their conceptions of beauty lies in thefact that their mode of valuation is primordially other-regarding: for it is notprimordially other-regarding.Rather, if their mode of valuation is to beobjected to for its slavishness, the objection will have to be that the valuationin question begins with a No not said to the non-self, as in slavemorality, but said self-regardingly.***3.3 I believe that this is correct: Nietzsche s basic objection to Kant s andSchopenhauer s approaches to the aesthetic problem is that they arerooted in a self-regarding No. And this suggests that his objection tothese approaches may be only weakly connected to the fact that they are,also, spectatorial indeed, the objection may seem no longer to be related tothat fact in any way.18This connection to self-denial explains why Nietzsche s discussion of Kant and Schopenhauerappears in the third essay of the Genealogy: their conceptions of beauty are iterations of the asceticideal. Une promesse de bonheur? Beauty in the Genealogy 319Up to a point this is true.If an investment in the ideal of disinterested-ness is a sign or a sufficient condition of a conception of beauty s beinggrounded in a No, so that the beautiful is merely an afterthought andpendant (GM, I, 10) derived by contrast from a more basic concept (GM,I, 11), then a spectatorly stance with no such investment should escapecensure.And here we might reinvoke Stendhal, for whom beauty promiseshappiness ; to him, the fact of the matter is precisely the excitement of the will( interestedness ) : thus he rejected and repudiated the one point about theaesthetic condition which Kant had stressed: le désintéressement. ForStendhal, then, as a genuine spectator and artist, there seems to be no No in sight a fact not disconnected, perhaps, from his being a morehappily adjusted personality than (e.g.) Schopenhauer s (GM, III, 6), andso someone having that much less about himself to say No to.And, if wewere to stop there, we might well conclude that there is nothing at allmissing from or wrong with a genuine spectator s take on beauty, and soattribute to Nietzsche an unqualified endorsement of Stendhal s conceptionof it, that beauty is une promesse de bonheur. But we shouldn t stop there not least because, as we have already seen,Nietzsche seems to regard even Stendhal s conception as only a faute demieux (as not so bad as Kant s or Schopenhauer s).We should, rather, ask(again) what the problem or shortcoming in Stendhal s definition ofbeauty is supposed to be.For now, as I ve already intimated, an obviousanswer lies at hand: the problem is that his conception is rooted in an other-regarding Yes. His mode of valuation is certainly positive it seems thathe doesn t arrive at beauty by way of any sort of negation.But it is also, atleast in the first place, not focused on the self.It is beauty out there thatStendhal s definition affirms; and this returns us to the objection that hisway of thinking is still essentially spectatorial (for all that it begins with a Yes ), and so to the idea that what Nietzsche is really after is a conceptionof beauty that is free of slavish taints altogether that is not just affirmative,but is also self-regarding.What he seems to want, in other words, is beauty in its fully noble conception.4.beauty for arti stsThis ambition may be problematic, however.Nietzsche s original noblesare, literally, history: they are almost inconceivably primitive.The vastmajority of modern human beings are simply too complex and conflicted too interesting (GM, I, 6) to be at all like them; which means that, asmoderns, we may have little access to or use for their mode of valuation.A 320 aaron ridley triumphant Yes said to oneself, that is, may lie beyond our repertoire.AndNietzsche, I think, agrees in general.But he does appear to believe thatthere is at least one class of person to whom this generalization does notapply; and this is the class artists. ***4
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